Agglutinative languages are languages that combine into a single word various linguistic elements, each of which has a distinct fixed connotation and a separate existence. For example, in Basque the word ponetekilakoaekin means 'with him who has a ponet'. The principal agglutinative languages include Turkish, Japanese, Finnish, Hungarian, Swahili, and Native American languages. English has agglutinating features in such compound words as ungodliness and unavoidably. Research Agglutinative Languages
The Anglo-Japanese Treaty was a treaty signed by Great Britain and Japan on January 30th 1902, by which the two powers agreed to safeguard their common interests in China and Korea. In the event of one of them being at war with a foreign power, the other would maintain a strict neutrality, but would assist her ally if a second foreign power joined the first. The treaty also stated that neither party would enter into agreements without the consent of the other and would confide fully in the other if common interests were endangered. The treaty was agreed for five years. Research Anglo-Japanese Treaty
The Baker Street Bazaar was a shop, formerly at 28 Baker Street, London, famous during the Victorian era for its sale of carriages, Chinese and Japanesewares. Dickens reports that in 1888 the Baker Street Bazaar was open between 10 am and 6 pm everyday. Research Baker Street Bazaar
Bondage is a family of sexual activities, generally involving the tying or strapping up of one partner or the other. Popular forms include Japaneserope bondage, involving extensive binding with rope. Often, though not necessarily, bondage is associated with sado-masochism, slave and master games or pony girlgames. Typical variations range from tying a partner's hands behind their back or handcuffing them in the manner of a police arrest, through to tying a partner spread-eagle on their back to a table, or standing against a wall. Tight fitting clothes, such as corsets are another popular form of self-administered bondage, particularly for women. Research Bondage
The Hitachi Zaxis is a range of Japanese medium hydraulic excavators. The Zaxis range are powered by an Isuzu AH-6HK1X 4-cycle water-cooled, direct injection turbocharged, Intercooled 6-cylinder engine providing a top speed of 5 kmh. The Zaxis range are fitted with caterpillar tracks and can traverse a 35 degree incline safely. Various attachments can be fitted to the boomarm for use in digging and demolition. Research Hitachi Zaxis
Ivory carving is the art of carving ivory for ornamental or useful purposes, practised from prehistoric to modern times. The ivory most frequently used is obtained from elephant tusks, but other types of ivory or substitute materials include the tusks, teeth, horns, and bones of the narwhal, walrus, and other animals, as well as vegetableivory and synthetic ivories. The earliest ivory carvings known were made in the Old Stone Age. The inhabitants of Europe in the Perigoridan period more than 20,000 years ago produced great numbers of ivory, bone, and horn carvings, with nude female figures being the most common subject. Representations of animals occur most often in the subsequent Magdalenian period. In Egypt the art of ivory and bone carving was developed in predynastic times, before 3000 BC . Large numbers of carved figures of men and women, as well as carved combs, hairpins, and handles, have been found in Egyptian tombs dating from predynastic and early dynastic periods. Objects found in Egyptian tombs of later date include carved ivory weapon hilts and furniture and caskets inlaid with ivory carvings.
Mesopotamian ivories frequently show strong Egyptian influence. They include a series of tablets carved with figures in low relief, made at the ancient Assyrian capital Nineveh. The Minoans in Crete, and later the ancient Greeks, were noted for their ivory carvings. The Minoans carved small acrobats and snake goddesses.
The Greeks were famous especially in the 5th century BC for their chryselephantine statues, often of heroic size, in which the flesh was represented in carved ivory and the hair and garments in sculptured gold. Among the Romans, in late imperial times, consular diptychs of carved ivory were much in demand. A consular diptych was a two-leafed tablet decorated with portraits and scenes commemorating the inauguration of a consul. It contained a sheet of wax for writing and was given to friends. Ivory carving flourished under the Byzantine Empire, particularly in the 5th and 6th centuries and from the 10th to the 13th century. Christian figures, symbols, and scenes were the subjects most commonly depicted on ivory book covers, icons, boxes, shrines, crosiers, crucifixes, door panels, and thrones. A masterpiece of Byzantine ivory is the Throne of Maximilian. Most Byzantine carvings, however, were in the form of a diptych. In Europe during the reigns of Charlemagne and his successors in the 9th and 10th centuries, elaborately carved ivory book covers, reliquaries, and altarpieces were produced.
Relatively little ivory carving was undertaken in Romanesque Europe, but it reached great heights in the Gothic period. Gothic ivories from the 13th to the 15th century were chiefly religious, as in earlier periods, but were more for private devotions than ecclesiastical use. Popular objects included diptychs with deeply carved figures and elaborate architectural decoration. Especially fine work was produced in Paris. During the 15th and 16th centuries, ivory carving was not popular, but in the baroque and rococo periods in the 17th and 18th centuries it again came into vogue, especially in Germany and the Netherlands. German craftsmen were known for richly ornamented ivories; Flemish craftsmen produced statuettes and other sculpture- inspired ivory carvings. France again became an important ivory- carving centre. The chief centres of the industry were the French cities of Dieppe and Paris, where large numbers of crucifixes and other religious objects were produced.
During the 18th century, however, the demand for ivories diminished. Ivory recovered its popularity in decorative arts in the Art Nouveau style at the end of the 19th century. Old ivory carvings are especially valued by 20th-century collectors of ivory, but very little ivory work is now produced in the western hemisphere. Muslim craftsmen in the Middle East created ivory inlay in intricate arabesque patterns on furniture and other woodwork. In the Far East the best-known ivories are those of India, Japan, and particularly China. Indians carved figures of their gods and ornate caskets, often imitating Italian styles. Japanese netsukes, small carved purse toggles, are often made of ivory. The Chinese have traditionally esteemed ivory and encouraged their artists to work in it. The art still flourishes today; objects created include statuettes, chess pieces, fans, screens, toilet articles, chopsticks, and models of buildings and boats. The Chinese are world famous for their ivory curiosities, particularly the concentric ivory balls carved one inside the other by Cantonese craftsmen. In Inuit, African, and American Indian cultures, carving in ivory, horn, and bone has been practised from the earliest times to the present day. Research Ivory Carving
Japanese drama commenced around the 7th century and to date has evolved a wide variety of genres characterised generally by the fusion of dramatic, musical, and dance elements. The music and dance, as well as the subjects, settings, costumes, and acting styles, were rigidly stylised and, until recent times, offered relatively few realistic or naturalistic qualities. Some genres utilise almost exclusively a fixed repertoire of plays, often many centuries old. The earliest known type of Japanese theatrical entertainment is gigaku, which was introduced into Japan in 612 from southern China; it is thought to have been ultimately of Indian or possibly even of Greek origin. Gigaku dances, performed with masks, seem to have been humorous. In the 8th century gigaku fell into disfavour because its frivolous character displeased the Japanese rulers of the period. It was supplanted largely by bugaku, an entertainment introduced from China. Bugaku dances portrayed simple situations such as the return of a general from war.
The performers wore impressive robes, and their dances had exotic splendour. Japanese rulers, intent on imitating Chinese courtetiquette, favoured bugaku, both because of its solemnity and because of its similarity to Chinese court entertainments, and it quickly acquired a ritual character. Bugaku may now be seen only at ceremonies. A type of acrobatic entertainment known as sangaku, transmitted similarly to Japan from the Asian continent and popular in the 8th century, also influenced Japanese drama. Typical acts included tightrope walking, juggling, and sword swallowing. A Combination of these secular entertainments and the sacred dances and songs associated with the Shinto religion gradually evolved into more complex forms of drama. Surviving documents from the 11th century describe comic playlets, and one play still performed, the ritual dance Okina, may date from this period.
Plays were also performed at shrine festivals in support of prayers for harvests or to depict the history of the shrine. The actors and musicians were organised into troupes. By the 14th century the theatre had developed one of its foremost artistic achievements, No drama. These plays included solemn dances intended to suggest the deepest emotions of the principal character and were written in the poetic language of the Japanese classics. A program also often included kyo gen, or farces written in colloquial language. No was brought to the level of great art by the genius of two dramatists, Kanami Kiyotsugu and his son Zeami Motokiyo. No was patronised by the Ashikaga shogunate after a shogun saw the boy Zeami perform in 1374. Zeami developed No into refined aristocratic drama, but after his death it tended to lose its creative vitality and become ritualistic. Many No plays performed at present are by Zeami, and his books of criticism are considered the final authority on the subject.
For a short period after the Meiji restoration in 1868, No was threatened with extinction because of its connections with the discredited shogunate. It survived the threat, however, and thereafter enjoyed popularity with specialised audiences. An entire program of No drama traditionally consists of five No plays in poetry with music and four kyo gen farces in prose without music, performed alternately. Kyogen farces feature representational acting, and the actors wear neither masks nor makeup. No plays avoid representational accuracy in favour of a symbolic treatment of subjects concerning the worlds of the living and the dead. The principal types of No plays are those dealing with deities, the ghosts of warriors, women with tragic destinies, mad persons, and devils or festive spirits. The actors, who often wear masks, are richly and elaborately costumed. The No drama is performed in a theatre with a roofed stage. The audience is seated on two or, less commonly, three sides of the stage. The actors reach the stage by a passageway, called the bridge, which is marked by three pine trees. The only backdrop is a large painted pine. The scenery consists entirely of impressionistic props suggesting the outlines of a building, a boat, or any other object of importance to the play. Only male actors perform in No dramas. When they play the roles of women or of men whose age is markedly different from their own, they wear masks, many of which are exceptionally beautiful. The No drama also includes a chorus that sits at one side of the stage and recites for the actors when they dance, but the chorus has no identity in the drama. Full programs are seldom presented any longer, but kyo gen continues to be an indispensable part of the entire performance, for it presents the humorous aspects of life with which No is never concerned.
At the end of the 15th century two new popular forms appeared; they were the puppet theatre, jo ruri, also called bunraku, and a form known as kabuki. The puppet theatre combines three elements: the puppets; the chanters who sing and declaim for the puppets; and the players of the samisen, a three-stringed instrument, who provide the accompaniment. The greatest Japanese dramatist, Chikamatsu Monzaemon, wrote chiefly for the puppet theatre, the artistic level of which is perhaps higher in Japan than anywhere else in the world. The puppet theatre, after attaining its greatest popularity in the 18th century, lost in public favour to the kabuki, which has continued to be the most popular traditional dramatic genre. By the mid-1980s kabuki was popular with American audiences, and troupes made annual appearances in the USA Kabuki tends to be spectacle rather than drama. Original kabuki texts, as opposed to those adapted from the puppet theatre, are of lesser importance than the remarkable acting, the music and dance, and the brilliantly collared settings.
Kabuki plays are performed in large theatres, with a hanamichi, or raised platform, extending from the back of the theatre to the stage. In addition to the traditional drama, a modern theatrical repertoire consisting of original Japanese plays in a modern idiom and of translations of European plays has been active in Japan since the beginning of the 20th century. Some 20th-century playwrights have attempted to compromise between traditional Japanese forms and essentially Western idioms, either by introducing modern psychology into their treatment of the ancient tales or by making kabuki-style plays out of such European classics as Shakespeare's Macbeth. Highly successful modern presentations of traditional themes are offered in Five Modern No Plays (1956) by Mishima Yukio. Other plays, notably Twilight Crane, produced in 1949, by Kinoshita Junji, are derived from old folktales. Many contemporary Japanese playwrights deal with such themes as conflict in modern Japanese society and problems of social injustice; other playwrights prefer to work out Japanese equivalents of modern symbolic drama or of the American musical comedy. Research Japanese Drama
A kago is a kind of Japaneselitter. Originally they were constructed of basketwork and slung on a pole which was carried on the shoulders of the bearers. Later they were made of wood. Research Kago
Abbreviations
Research Agglutinative Languages
